Hmmmmm... Well, since everybody else seeme to be doing it, her are a few views of my humble domicile:
Western Pacific is the railroad that my father spent nearly 30 years working for. You'll find that it's a recurring theme here.
There's just something about me and memorabilia.
Even more junk.
With the amount of stuff I have hanging, you'd think that I'd never heard of wallpaper.
Okay, now to explain the significance of this second-hand-store from Hell...
The lamp is something that I made myself. The base is actually an old railroad switch lantern. These used to be mounted on top of track-side switch stands so that a train traveling at night could tell which way the tracks were aligned. These devices have long since been rendered obsolete by modern signaling systems, but they can still be found in antique stores and at swap meets.
A small collection of mementos from my father. These items are his watch, ticket punch, brake-test gauge and F.R.A. rule book. ("Roolz" is a good demonstration of his sense of humor in action.)
The strip of paper under Plexiglas is a ticket from the California Zephyr passenger train. It has never been punched.
This is my personal library. Left hand side is my collection of books on railroads. The lower-right is the Time-Life series of books on World War Two: The complete set! Booyah!
Yet another railroad-themed corner. The photo by the window curtain is of the California Zephyr stopped in Oroville, California, sometime in the late 1960s. The picture below the bulletin board is a pencil sketch of a Southern Pacific Railroad 4-10-2 type steam locomotive that my father drew by hand. (He was a pretty talented artist.)
Below is a 1950's advertising poster from the Chicago & Northwestern Railway. Above is a collage I put together in remembrance of my playing golf at Pebble Beach Golf Links this past Spring. It's got several photos that I took of the course, a souvenir flag and my completed scorecard. (For a day that cost me nearly $700 all told, I darn well wanted
something to remember it by.)
Awards Row: Just a few trophies that I've won over the years, mainly for golf and bowling.
Model Citizens: Building scale models has always been a passing hobby of mine. Here we have a pair of items from the Second World War: A Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber, and an American Fletcher-class destroyer that I'm in the process of converting to remote control.
Admittedly, I'm not much of a sports fan, but I always feel obligated to support the local team, and since I never could stand the American League, the Giants it is! The spitoon next to the trash can is an antique. Items such as this were standard fixtures on first-class passenger trains of the Union Pacific Railroad prior to the turn of the century.
Sorry about the weird lighting, but because of the sign's highly-reflective surface, I couldn't use my flash here.
This is a logo placard taken from Western Pacific locomotive # 2001 on October 28, 1970. Such placards were commonplace on WP locos throughout the 1950s and 60s, but by 1968 a revamping of the company's image brought a change in color scheme, and thousands of the placards were scrapped as a result. My father salvaged this by leaning out the window of # 2001 and unscrewing the mounting bolts, all while traveling 60 miles per hour through the town of French Camp, CA. Number 2001 was repainted later that same evening.
As a result of the repainting campaign, very few placards survived, and virtually none of those are in near mint condition, such as this one is. I count it as one of my most prized possessions.
The centerpiece of my room, however, is this: My HO-scale model train collection. Here, seventy-two feet of track is filled with my best modeling work and protected from dust and burglars by locking, Plexiglas-fronted doors. (Actually, this is only about half of my total collection. My more lackluster efforts are stored in boxes in my closet.)
Some of the items here that I'm most proud of are the locomotives and rolling stock of the Sierra Railway, located near the top, and the Southern Pacific steam locos down below, including Daylight engine # 4449 and Cab-Forward locomotive # 4294.
The Jewel of my entire collection: The California Zephyr, circa 1955. It's taken me nearly four years and nearly $1,600 to put this 12-car, three-locomotive consist together, but to me it was worth every minute and penny. For someone who's as big a fan of the WP as I am, it's totally priceless! Other examples of WP locomotives and rolling stock can be seen below.
Ahhhhh... There's no place like home!